


Vignettes: Post-Dark Heart

by lustfulpasiphae (miraphora)



Series: Hawk of the Marches [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:02:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6496459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraphora/pseuds/lustfulpasiphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles and fragments from the Hawk of the Marches oeuvre.  Events occurring in the aftermath of the Envy demon attack in Skyhold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Keeps You Awake

 

She wakes, too warm, her eyes gritty with sleep and achingly tired. She turns, migrating across the bed in fitful increments, waging a determined campaign against the coverlet and her clinging nightshirt, searching in vain for a pillow with a cool side. 

She lies at last in defeat on the farthest edge of the bed, staring up into the darkness toward the distant rafters. Sleep eludes her, and yet her mind spins without focus on any thought or worry. She is restless, but so tired. Her skin feels too tight, and over-warm.

Moments pass. At last she rolls from the bed, the too-large linen shirt falling around her thighs, and stands beside the bed, toes crooked into the pile of the carpets. 

She can’t decide what she feels, so she begins to address each of her needs, one by one, to identify what prevents her from sleeping. Her throat is dry, scratchy, so she pours water from the ewer, sipping the cool, flat liquid. Thirst soothed, she reassesses. Her shoulders ache, from sleeping cramped and tensed. She is still too warm.

Moonlight filters through the tall Orlesian doors, and she drifts towards these silver pools, dragging a cushion from before the banked and quiescent fire and seating herself. She rests her cheek against the cold leaded glass, presses one hand flat to the panes, feeling the brisk transfer of heat from skin to glazing. A chill works through her.

Time is a concept divorced from the night. She sits, studying the patterns and waves in the blown glass, the stray beads of lead marring the channels joining each piece, loses herself for uncounted moments in a bubble in the glazing that catches and distorts the moonlight. Her eyes still ache, but the moonlight is gentle.

It is not like sleeping, but it is mindless and disconnected. She sits for a long time that way.

She doesn’t hear him coming, but she isn’t startled when he touches her. She thinks she was waiting for it.

His arm anchors her, wrapped around her shoulders, the corded muscle of his forearm pressed warm and firm against her chest just below her collarbones. He needs to shave-–his stubble catches the fine strands of her hair as he presses his cheek to the back of her head, warm on the curve of her skull. He holds her, without speaking, seated behind her on the cushion. 

She traces the leaded channels of the window, feeling a hollow where words should be. He is so warm, and she has been here by the window longer than she realized, the chill of the night air transferring to her skin. She doesn’t need words to lean back against him, to welcome his embrace, to express gratitude and acknowledgment for his warmth.

His chest expands and flexes with his quiet, steady breathing–-she feels it against her shoulder-blades. He shifts his cheek against her hair, his lips barely brushing the upper curve of her ear where it peaks from the tousled strands. He asks nothing.

She feels less like a rudderless ship adrift on the Waking Sea with him there behind her, holding her. She thought she might try to explain-- _nothing wrong, I couldn’t sleep, my eyes are tired, I’m not worried, I don’t know_ –-but the longer she sits with his arms around her, the harder it is to remember why.

Her fingertips are still pressed to the crisp edges of the glass when her eyes slide shut.


	2. Big Damn Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Storytellers have a weakness for heroes.

They were training in the bailey because this was meant to be a show. 

Cullen leaned against a post, hands clasped on his pommel–though not against tremors, today. He felt good–-solid–-grounded. The steadiness of the weeks in Ferelden still had him centered, and he’d been maintaining better habits since he returned. It was helping. He hoped he would be able to keep it up despite the continuing pressures on all of them as the assault on Adamant approached.

There was a crunch of dry grass beside him, and the fencing vibrated as another dense body rested against it. Cullen glanced to the side, nodded to Varric cordially in greeting. The dwarf returned the nod, surprisingly taciturn. They watched in silence as the combatants sparred or demonstrated tactics. 

Mira was showing off, a new bow in her hands, a heavy draw with a particularly sturdy string and guard. A unit of senior bowmen were watching as she demonstrated multiple draws and–-with cooperation from an amused Dorian–-flaming arrows. She had explained to Cullen before that she used it sparingly in the field–-though with a wry look of regret that made it clear she was enamored of the technique–-because mage fire often heated the arrow points and ruined them, and she was thrifty when a quick melee might turn into a pitched battle with no prospect of re-provisioning. But for a siege, the combination of longbows and mages could be deadly, and she fully intended that their troops be prepared to take advantage.

And if it forced the integration of their magical and mundane forces, all the better.

Dorian said something indistinct, and Mira nodded once, and the mage lobbed a fireball into the air. Three arrows fired off at once, soaring in a deadly parabola, lighting in the heart of the fireball and hissing to the dirt target at the far end. The flames lingered stickily, unlike natural fire, and another mage at the end of the field extinguished them with ice. 

They continued in that vein for a bit before a lean, deadly figure with a distinctive swagger approached from the side and called out a challenge. The Seeker was armored, a blunted practice sword in her hands. Mira laughed, unstrung her bow, and fetched a pair of blunt blades.

Cullen, who had often been on the wrong end of Cassandra’s expertly-wielded sword and ruthless battlefield tactics, winced sympathetically when their first close engagement broke off after the Seeker landed a hard, dull-edged smack against Mira’s leather-clad thigh. She would have some magnificent bruises later–-he made a note to ask Dennet for a vial of linseed ointment before joining her in her chambers tonight.

Cassandra eased off through two more quick bouts, until Mira eeled inside her guard and tapped her knife-hilt against the steel cuirass warningly before breaking engagement again. After that, their exchanges heated up. 

Cassandra had no patience for elegant footwork, but her balance was steady and her command of her own body and her relentless focus in the heat of battle made her a formidable opponent. Mira was not nearly as acrobatic as Sera, but her legs were long and she had a lanky, sinuous way of covering distance and closing with her opponent that Cullen had reason to know-–if in a completely different context–-could be highly effective. And she had been making steady improvement to her skill with dual blades since they came to Skyhold.

Cullen felt a purely instinctual tightening of his muscles as Cassandra bull-charged toward Mira, and his hand clenched around his sword-pommel to forestall a protective gesture. There was a burst of admiring clapping and cheers from the other end of the field as Mira leapt like a halla towards the nearest fencepost, pushing with a flurry of splinters off of the middle rung and into the air over Cassandra’s head. 

The only sound was the thump of the wood, Cassandra’s cry as she charged, the gasps from a few throats–-Mira didn’t shout and cry out when she was in battle, her intensity was quiet but for strained breath. Cassandra staggered to find her obstacle suddenly removed, and pivoted too late, trying to redirect her momentum. Twin blades kissed with crossed tenderness against her nape, and she stilled.

Cullen relaxed again, a grin twisting his scarred mouth as he caught a quick flick of acknowledgment from the Inquisitor’s yellow eyes. Beside him, Varric pushed away from the fence, and he was startled to see a scowl on the dwarf’s face as he watched the two women share a companionable one-armed embrace. Cassandra was flushed with effort and slightly apologetic for the earlier strike and eventual bruises–-Mira was laughing her off good-naturedly, running a slender hand back through sweat-damp chestnut hair. They were a picture-–women of the Inquisition, fearless and fierce and laughing in the face of an uncertain future.

Varric glanced up at him, and Cullen felt slightly self-conscious at his piercing stare, realizing his feelings for Mira must be written all over his face. The dwarf shook his head. 

“It’s always the big damn heroes, isn’t it?”

With that he turned away, leaving the training pitch and making a beeline for the tavern. Cullen frowned slightly, perplexed by the absence of the man’s usual good humor–-feigned or sincere, it was still a professional mask that he wore without fail. Even in Kirkwall. Cassandra glanced in his direction, and he nodded to her, and realized when she didn’t acknowledge him that her gaze was directed behind him-–towards the tavern.

Ah. Maker’s breath.

It wasn’t his place. He reminded himself of this firmly, as Mira released the Seeker and flipped one of her practice blades end over end before shouting his name and tossing it to him. She swept a dramatic bow like a Marcher lordling, and he laughingly joined her on the pitch as his soldiers shouted encouragement for a new bout.

He had already fought his own battles to return to the side of his hero-–he was sure Varric would find his way.

It was what storytellers did.


	3. Mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Satinalia interlude replete with stolen kisses.
> 
> Dedicated to @more-aoe, @divadevi8808,@transfigurations12 and the anons who sent me mistletoe kisses!

 

They are into the second bottle of fortified wine before they find a tree that has what they need. There are so few growing things around Skyhold, they’ve had to venture halfway down the mountain. But they haven’t been subtle about it, despite being a pair of rogues. There’s a track a mile wide in the snowy path, and even a blind man–or a stick-up-his-arse soldier type, Sera suggests spikily–could follow it, even in the silver sparking moonlight. 

The shadows and moonlight play tricks on their eyes, and they sway together like a pair of larches in a high wind, peering up into the bare spindly branches of a stripped tree. There’s a telltale cluster of foliage up there, where you’d think to find it, but–

“Are you SURE about this? Is this even an oak? Aren’t we too HIGH in the MOUNTAINS?” Mira hisses this, quietly, as though if she raises her voice she might wake or disturb the sleeping, somnolent winter trees rustling faintly around them. She’s an ocean girl, and at lower elevations she’s accustomed to seeing this tricky growth in the highest branches of willow oaks and finger oaks with their odd-shaped leaves, and the evergreen live oaks that never shed their mantle of green even in the mild coastal winters. But this is a veritable tundra up here, frozen and crisp.

Sera turns her head, all shadows and sharp planes and feathered hair in the odd monochrome of moonlight. Mira squints at her as she speaks. “Stop bein’ daft, who cares if it’s an oak or sommat. Look at it! All cluttered like a pile of gold sovereigns! Course it’s mistletoe.”

“BUT ARE YOU SURE?” Mira hisses again, in a whisper that might wake the dead if there were dead at this altitude to disturb. The trees shake their branches together in censure, reproving of her indelicacy. She huddles her shoulders against a chilling wind and whispers an apology, in a true whisper this time, hushed and reverent. 

Sera is cackling. “You’re mad. C’mon, get your bow out. Moon-touched Herald.” The other woman shakes her head, marveling at how ridiculous this woman they call the Inquisitor can be when she’s in her cups, and readies her own bow, her red and gold-fletched arrow pulled to her pursed lips.

Mira very slinkily looses her bow from her shoulder, selects an arrow with excruciating care, making Sera growl with exasperation, until they both have drawn and hold themselves tensed to loose their arrows.

“Ready?” This time Sera is the one hissing with exaggerated quiet.

The forest around them goes silent with reproach.

“Sera…I think the trees are going to get us.” Mira is quivering with cold and drunkenness and the conviction that the world is trying to send her a message that it will STRIKE HER DOWN for her follies.

The elf chortles with her usual bravado and then hisses a quick breath. “On my count!”

Mira tenses her muscles, feeling her own brown and cream fletching tickle her lips, and when Sera hisses a fervent “3″ she fires up in an arching shot into the barren tree before them. Green light lingers along her arrow, a phantom heat crackling in the palm of her left hand.

Sera grumbles something resentful about strange magic, but doesn’t shy away or get awkward like she did that time in the Hinterlands, when the Mark exploded. Everyone has gotten more accustomed to the odd way her Anchor behaves–even she has, even while she hides the way it *aches*, Maker sometimes like she can feel the evil green poison of it spiraling up through her arm. Sometimes she wonders if it’s like blood sickness and will creep towards her heart and eventually cause her to sicken and die. Sometimes she curses herself for a maudlin fool, especially with this much wine in her blood. 

They loose their arrows in tandem, and the arc of them is perfect, and Sera’s arrow flares with added force–a display they had not calculated. Mira makes a sound of protest. But the golden bundle of glossy leaves comes tumbling down, and Sera bounds forward to collect it.

Mira is laughing, her bow back over her shoulder, secretly impressed that they managed to dislodge the mistletoe on one concerted shot, hands resting on her knees as she bends forward. Sera returns to her with the glossy, chill leaves clutched in her slender hands, shaking them emphatically so the white berries glisten in the moonlight.

“It’s brilliant, right?” she demands–she is always demanding things with her words, as though she is set up for the world to deny her. It hurts Mira’s heart.

She reaches out, snagging a sprig of the strange growth from Sera’s hands, and holds it over their heads with a wicked, drunken grin. “ _Mais oui._ It’s very brilliant. C’mere, darlin’.”

Sometimes she is all drawling and silliness, remembering her years ranging along the width and breadth of the Marches and Nevarra and Antiva and Rivain with her Fools. And sometimes she is not. Sera goes still and startled at her forward demand.

Mira tastes her lips–cool and soft and smokey from the heady wine. Mira slants her lips, parting them against Sera’s mouth, suckling lightly on her full lower lip, exploring that sweet taste deeper, humming with speculative ease against her flesh.

Sera pulls away at a sudden crunch of crusted snow nearby, laughing nervously and pressing the back of her hand to her lips. “Crazy Herald.” 

“Indeed,” comments a low, purring tenor, from beneath the shuddering trees.

Sera laughs again–still tense. “You need some bees to break this up, let me know. But I’m out of here.”

She takes her bow and her arrows, a double armful of crisp golden glossy leaves and white berries, and scurries back up the mountain path. She leaves Mira alone in the clearing with the dark, substantial figure of the Commander.

Mira, who tilts her head back, suddenly feeling the support of the trees that felt so censorious and judgmental before, and grins, almost imperceptible in the dangerous moonlight. 

“ _Mon chevalier_. What are you doing here?”

He has absolutely nothing to do with Orlais, and knowing now, as she does, the heritage of his family, and his father’s service in the Fereldan war for independence, she can’t blame him. But he shivers when she purrs in her mother’s tongue, and she takes advantage.

He is oblivious tonight through, stern and stalwart and steady. His hands clasp her forearms, steady and firm. “Mira.”

She cocks her head, her lips still tingling with her stolen kiss from Sera, and waves the sprig of mistletoe at him tauntingly. “Cullen,” she responds, grinning from the subversive tension of parroting back at him in the same tone.

His hands tighten slightly on her forearms. “You were–”

A breath, two, settles between them. She hesitates, wondering if he will fight with her, or renounce her. There is a moment of stark, irrational fear, deep inside her, and she clasps the mistletoe close in her hand. Perhaps he will think she is awful for bestowing kisses where she will, that she has been unfaithful, that she is repulsive.

She awaits his word.

He holds her, trailing his hands down her arms, finding her hand still clasping the mistletoe, and lifts it over their heads with a careful breath. “My lady. May I steal a kiss?”

He asks so prettily, where she would have never expected it. She is his, for the asking and the taking, whether he realizes or not, and his careful permission-seeking is merely a courtesy she would not have assumed she deserved. It warms her heart. Mira rocks forward on the balls of her feet, pressing their lips together quickly, roughly. He is always ready for her, eager. His lips part, and her tongue strokes along the inner seam, delicate and teasing, to show him how thoroughly she intends to love him. 

She thinks sometimes that he forgets. He is not a man accustomed to receiving easy love–but she knows he has been loved in the past, and she is both grateful for it, and jealous. She wants to know what lines his past loves have drawn on his skin, the claims they have breathed against his chest, and etch her own marks on him, to let the Maker and all future comers know, Cullen Rutherford belongs to her. She will fight off demons and men and the end of the world for this man’s love.

The sprig of mistletoe crimps, forgotten, in one hand, and her other is threaded tenderly through his curls. Overhead, the trees rustle and shift in the winter breeze, and the moon sparkles and spangles over their joined flesh, and she is content.


End file.
